Super Bowl, Ho Hum. Who Won the Lingerie Bowl?

There may have been no cheerleaders at the 2011 Super Bowl for your man to ogle, but never fear: The ladies of the Lingerie Bowl were showing plenty of skin. And kicking some serious butt.

While some may have opted to watch the free Kitten Halftime Show on Animal Planet, viewers who were willing to shell out saw Los Angeles Temptation and the Philadelphia Passion duke it out in Las Vegas on Pay-Per-View. In their underwear.

Of course, not everyone happy about this. Feminist opponents argued that it clearly objectifies women and discredits the thousands of female athletes who play in organized football leagues and receive little commercial interest. I can see their point -- it's a bummer that a woman has to wear lingerie to get paid to play football -- but the Lingerie Bowl participants aren't just a bunch of Hooters waitresses wrestling each other in hot pants. They're athletes! And the term lingerie is relative.

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Don't get me wrong: They are wearing hot pants, but they are not sashaying around in thongs and stilettos. Their uniforms are more like full-coverage bikinis with a few ribbons sewn on here and there. And when they actually play, they wear face paint, knee pads, shoulder pads and some pretty unsexy helmets.

On top of that, these women actually have to be able to play football to be in the Lingerie Football League (yes, this is an actual league). There are rigorous tryouts every year to play on one of 10 teams that compete to go to the Lingerie Bowl, which is now in its eighth year.

Sure, some of the players are models and go on to get spreads in Playboy, but if a Playboy spread is what they're after and they get it by playing football, that's definitely a novel way to go about it.

When I asked my husband if he had any interest in the Lingerie Bowl, he said it's totally irrelevant to game day. And I agree. Lingerie Bowl is a non-issue. Seeing as I have no athletic talent whatsoever, I admire any woman who has the guts and talent to play a contact sport like football, even if it's in her "underwear."

Oh, in case you were wondering, Temptation narrowly edged out Passion in a 26-25 victory. What a game!